Written and edited by Norm Scott:
EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!!
Three pillars of The Resistance – providing information on current ed issues, organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We link up with bands of resisters. Nothing will change unless WE ALL GET INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE!

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Is NY Times Incompetent Ed Coverage Intentional?

Do reporters at the New York Times know that cheating occurs? We’re fairly sure they do! Just last Tuesday, a news report in the Times ran beneath this headline:“Closing Arguments Begin in Test Cheating Trial of 12 Atlanta Educators”. In
the past few years, cheating scandals have been so huge that even our
most famous newspapers have managed to report them. But by force of
habit and dint of culture, reporters still fail to connect the dots when
it comes to a topic like this.

Has Governor Cuomo thought about
this? We don’t have the slightest idea! Our mightiest paper, the New
York Times, seems disinclined to ask.... Daily Howler

One of my fave topics is the biased, but mostly no-nothing reporting on education - and probably most other issues. The tabloids have long-time ed beat writers who get to know the local ed scene but often distort their reporting to reflect editorial. The Times has a different tactic - inexperience - sort of a tfa for ed reporting. People who really know the beat, like Mike Winerip or Anna Philips, are pushed out for new blood that doesn't have a clue. Why? Because the more experience, the more the ed deform scam becomes clear and if honest, a good reporter can't really distort the issues in favor of the deformers.

in the process of writing
about this ideological battle, the reporter, Maggie Haberman, characterizes Democrats for
Education Reform, one of the principle hedge fund-backed lobby groups as a
“left of center group,” which is absurd.
For some reason, DFER has managed to persuade reporters that it has any liberal
credentials, despite the fact that as Diane Ravitch pointed out, the California Democratic Party has repudiated it.

Parents Across America wrote an open letter to the NPR ombudsman in 2011, objecting to the fact that
Claudio Sanchez, the NPR reporter, had called DFER a “liberal”
organization, while quoting their criticism of the progressive participants in
the anti-corporate reform Save Our Schools march in DC.

We also pointed out that DFER’s founder,
hedge fund operator Whitney Tilson, admitted
that the only reason he put “Democrats” in the organization’s title and focused
on convincing Democrats to adopt their pro-privatization agenda was that GOP
leaders were already in agreement with most of their positions.

And the Howler takes the Times to task on reporting on the evaluation issue where he raises the purposeful ignoring of cheating as a factor -- go test some of Eva's charter kids at random in June - or September.

It seems to us they failed: We’re often amazed by the way our biggest newspapers report on the nation’s schools.

So
it was this morning, when the New York Times published a 1600-word
front-page report about the use of standardized tests to rate New York
State teachers.

Governor Cuomo wants to extend the practice.
According to reporter Kate Taylor, his proposals, which teacher groups
largely oppose, “would both increase the weight of test scores, to 50
percent of a teacher’s rating, and decrease the role of their
principals’ observations.”

Should test scores constitute 50
percent of a teacher’s rating? That strikes us as a bad idea. We were
struck by Taylor’s failure to state an obvious reason why it seems like a bad idea.

For
what it’s worth, we aren’t opposed, as a matter of principle, to the
use of test scores in evaluating teachers. We assume that principals
have always used test scores in some such way. Consider a hypothetical
example from the distant past:

In the spring of 1970, we
administered the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills to a class of Baltimore
fifth-graders. At that time, the thought didn’t cross our minds that the
test results would be used to evaluate us.

That said,
suppose our principal noticed that Teacher Smith’s fourth-grade students
got horrible test scores year after year. Wouldn’t she have been
obligated to figure out why that was happening?

Governor Cuomo wants to go well beyond that. He wants to use student scores in the annual ratings of all teachers.

Near the end of her lengthy report, Taylor presented some objections to this idea. As you can see, her explanation was fuzzy:

TAYLOR
(3/23/15): John Bierwirth, the superintendent of the Herricks school
district, also on Long Island, where 93 percent of the teachers were
rated highly effective, said that in devising his district’s evaluation
system, he had intentionally tried to create a cushion to
counterbalance the portion of the ratings based on test scores, which
for an individual teacher can bounce up and down from year to year.

[T]he movement to weigh scores heavily in teacher evaluations has lost some steam. The
fact that ratings based on test scores can vary from year to year has
led to concern about teachers being unfairly penalized.
Additionally, the transition to tougher, Common Core-aligned tests, and
the associated drop in scores, has left many teachers, administrators
and parents skeptical of the validity of the results. In a Quinnipiac
University poll conducted this month, disapproval of the use of test
scores helped drag Mr. Cuomo’s approval rating down to 50 percent, his
lowest ever.

“Most leaders, even those who support teacher
evaluation reform, have decided to reduce the degree to which the
evaluations depend on student achievement results,” Michael Petrilli,
the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative
education reform organization, said.

“That’s partly to try to
make the evaluations more palatable to teachers, but it’s also because
they’re trying to make these evaluations more reliable, and there are legitimate technical concerns with the value-added scores,” Mr. Petrilli said, referring to the method by which teachers’ impact on their students’ test results is calculated.

That
was pretty much it. Test scores can bounce up and down from year to
year! Also, “there are legitimate technical concerns with the
value-added scores,” the one quoted expert said.

None of those
statements are “wrong.” That said, they constitute a very fuzzy tea.
Meanwhile, we were struck by the problem which didn’t yodel:

What happens when teachers cheat?

Duh!
Unless Cuomo has come up with a very strong security program, that
would be an obvious problem with his proposal. Hoping to get a strong
evaluation, today’s Teacher Smith might cheat his ascot off with his
fourth-grade students.

This means that Teacher Smith will get an inappropriately good evaluation. And the problem doesn’t end there:

The
following year, those kids’ test scores will come back to earth when
they’re in the fifth grade with Teacher Jones. As a result, Teacher
Jones, who didn’t cheat, will get an inappropriately bad evaluation.

Do reporters at the New York Times know that cheating occurs? We’re fairly sure they do! Just last Tuesday, a news report in the Times ran beneath this headline:

In
the past few years, cheating scandals have been so huge that even our
most famous newspapers have managed to report them. But by force of
habit and dint of culture, reporters still fail to connect the dots when
it comes to a topic like this.

Has Governor Cuomo thought about
this? We don’t have the slightest idea! Our mightiest paper, the New
York Times, seems disinclined to ask.

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UFT Election Vote Comparison: 2004-10

A Personal Historical Perspective

Why Karen Lewis Reads Ed Notes

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Hedges says, There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history.

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

GEM's Julie Cavanagh Debates E4E member on NY1 on LIFO and Seniority

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy TysonProfessor of African American Studies and HistoryDuke University

A Familiar Voice on Unions

"We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike"- Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Outsource our children

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping by Norm Scott

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

From Sharon Higgins

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Video of Chicago's George Schmidt and CORE Shredding Arne Duncan and the Chicago Corporate Model

Great Post on Teacher Quality at the Morton School

I'm very tired of the myth that schools are bursting at the seams with apathetic, unskilled, surly, child-hating losers who can't get jobs doing anything else. I recently figured that, counting high school and college where one encounters many teachers in the course of a year, I had well over 100 teachers in my lifetime, and I can only say that one or two truly had no place being in a classroom.